A while back, I wrote an article about how I finally figured out what it was about Ned that I didn’t like, the man simply refused to take a risk. Need to have Brett Tomko around so your eighth starter has been here before. Need to bring back Nomar because Loney might not be ready. Can’t have Jayson Werth on the roster because he might get hurt, and so on. This lack of risk taking has lead to the large amount of proven veterans clogging up the Dodger proverbial bases the last couple years.
Because of this rather annoying habit of buying high and selling low, it was a huge shock when Ned signed Andruw Jones this off season. Jones was coming off a coming off a season where he made Juan Pierre look like an offensive force, so the typical Ned thing to do would be ignore Jones, then beg Torii Hunter to come play for us. Instead, Ned took a risk. Ned took the guy that had a suppressed value in the market, but had the potential to be good anyway. This was the first time he did something like this with someone that you weren’t sure was going to get hurt immediately. It was good, it was the type of move that good GMs make to get a leg up on the competition.
This is why I can’t get upset, even if Jones fails miserably. It’s what I’ve wanted the whole time that Ned has steered the ship. Will it suck if Jones keeps flaling away for the next two years like he did this April? Of course. But for the low, low cost of only money, the Dodgers got a chance to get a very good player without being stuck in a potentially ruinous financial situation. I would much rather we get Jones, and see him fail that pick up some “safe” option, like, well, Juan Pierre.
Even if Jones never finds success, he’ll still probably be better than Juan Pierre thanks to his defensive prowess, so it will be hard to say this deal was a total loss. Even if Jones never figures it out (and it’s way too soon to say he won’t) picking up Andruw Jones was a good move by Ned, regardless of the end result.
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Speaking of buying low on a guy with upside, Derrick Turnbow was DFA’d by the Brewers. Turnbow has struck out 10.25 per nine since 2006, but has had control issues the whole way, and that’s blown up into a 5/13 K/BB ratio this year. Would he fail miserably on the Dodgers? Probably, but as long as we keep Chan Ho in the pen, we’ve got room for a guy like Turnbow.
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Julio Franco has officially retired , ending a career that began two years before I was born.